Stuart MacDonald, yachtsman
I had spent my whole life doing what I thought I ought to do and I’ve spent the last four years actually doing what I wanted. There were tough times but the good days outnumbered the bad. I will never regret going as I’ve had the most fulfilling years of my life.
In 2010, I was running my own consultancy firm in South Korea. I was under a lot of pressure. I had already had a stroke some years previously. Walking to the office one January morning in the driving snow, I decided I had had enough.
Sailing across the ocean is one of the last real freedoms left. In Britain we live in a vastly over-regulated society. At sea, you make your own rules. It’s a great feeling.
The first real day out at sea after I quit my job was when I set off across the Bay of Biscay. I was hugely optimistic and excited.
Three years later I was unable to sell my boat in New Zealand and I was faced with having to sail her all the way across the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope and back home. The excitement had gone and the return voyage became almost drudgery.
What helped me while I travelled was the encouragement I received from my children. Two of the most emotional days included meeting my daughter on a tiny island after spending a long time apart and meeting up with my son and his family.
The worst place was Fernando de Noronha. There was no running water in the public toilet, which could be smelled 200 yards away, and there was no fresh water in the port.
My best moment was sighting New Zealand. That was tremendous.
The experience has changed me in a number of ways. Before I left I used to get worked up and stressed about small things, like the car breaking down or something going wrong. Now I’ve got a new outlook on life. I’m far calmer and more philosophical.
I met some wonderful people on my journey. I used to be guilty of taking people at face value and maybe not appreciating what was behind them. Not any more – you think it’s just some old guy until you sit with them and listen to what they’ve actually done in their life.
When I set off, I was worn out. When I got back I felt younger than I was when I set off. It’s a very healthy lifestyle because the great majority of the time you’re active, you’re out in the open air all day, you don’t have any chance to live on junk or rich food, you’re living on very basic food and very little alcohol. On a three-week passage, hundreds of miles from land, basic things taken for granted at home, like a tasty meal or a drink of water, become very important.
My advice to anyone thinking of giving it all up for an adventure such as this would be that although it’s a great thing to do, it’s not something that you could go into blind. It was much easier for me because I had been a seafarer all my life and had already sailed yachts for thousands of miles on my own, so I was already pretty experienced. Without some basic sailing experience, you might be lucky and learn as you went along, but you could get into trouble as well.
The Long Way Home by Stuart MacDonald can be purchased on Amazon for £9.50 or via his website: www.beyondsailing.co.uk
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